


Lovebirds

by suchanadorer



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M, Prompt Fill, SRS 2012, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-13
Updated: 2012-11-13
Packaged: 2017-11-18 14:17:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/561965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suchanadorer/pseuds/suchanadorer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><a href="http://srs2012.dreamwidth.org/3911.html?thread=40519#cmt40519">Prompt at SRS 2012:</a> <i>Adam's never put much stock in the idea of soul-mates, but for angels they're a painful reality, and when his brothers reject Michael and Lucifer the consequences are pretty severe for the angels. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Lovebirds

When Adam Milligan was a kid, his best friend across the street had pet birds. While he can no longer recall the brightly colored parrots’ names, he does remember his friend’s mother carefully explaining to him that they were lovebirds, and they always came in pairs. If one died, it had to be replaced, or the other bird would waste away and perish for want of a mate.

At the time he’d thought that seemed like something of an exaggeration, but looking at the two archangels splitting a bottle of bourbon at his kitchen table, Adam can think of no more fitting description. He wonders to himself if it would be to any benefit to give them each a mirror with a little bell attached.

Michael and Lucifer had turned up on his doorstep a week ago, in the middle of the night, looking for all the world like two lost children, if lost children could also look menacing, their faces cast with deep shadows in the harsh light of his porch lamp.

“Do I know you?” He’d asked groggily, roused from sleep by the doorbell. Lucifer pushed his way inside, and Michael followed with a mumbled apology.

“Wait, hold on, who the hell are you, and what are you doing in my house?”

What had followed was an explanation that dragged on until dawn and cost Adam a day’s pay as he stayed home to take it all in. Apparently there was supposed to an Apocalypse, except now there wouldn’t be, because these two archangels couldn’t get into their true vessels to do battle, so the whole thing had to be called off. Angels were real, Satan and demons were real. Everything he’d ever heard about in his nightmares was real.

Oh, and these vessels were also brothers he’d never known he had, which was how the angels had been able to find him in the first place.

Clearly he’d let two headcases into his house. He’d wanted to call the police, but the dark-haired guy, the one who had apologized, had said that he could explain it better if Adam let him touch his forehead. So he did, and sure enough, there it all was, clear as day, a direct, high definition download of the Winchester gospels, straight to Adam’s brain.

That was the earliest he’d ever started drinking.

“So, wait. If you aren’t possessing Sam and Dave-”

“Dean.” Michael had gently corrected him.

“Right, Dean. If you’re not possessing them, who are these guys?” He asked, waving his hand between them.

“This is Nick,” Lucifer said, gesturing to himself. While the idea that Satan would choose a scruffy-looking guy with bad skin and the start of middle-age spread to wear while he walked the Earth seemed a stretch to Adam, it wasn’t the craziest idea that had been floated since these two turned up, so he just nodded and waited for Michael to answer.

“This is John Winchester, your father, but from before you were born. Before any of you were born.” Michael had a way of speaking that made everything he said seem like a grave pronouncement, and this was no different.

Adam couldn’t say that he saw any family resemblance, but that was just fine with him because he barely knew his father anyway.

And so, for the last week, these two had lived with him, and he had gotten a crash course on holy broken hearts. Because these two had it bad for their vessels, and there was no way to shake them out of it.

Angels don’t eat, and they don’t sleep, but they do drink, as Adam had discovered after his first day back to work. He came home to a table covered in empty bottles and two grown men sitting on his roof, looking up at the stars and crying about destiny and the divine plan. He’d let them stay up there until they started singing sappy love songs, then stood on the lawn and shouted until they hopped down. After that he’d restricted them to one bottle of liquor a day, and since they had no money and no jobs, they were forced to accept the rationing.

Two days after that he’d been called home in the middle of the day by a neighbor, terrified of the noises she heard coming from inside his house. He’d hurried home, but still only managed to make it in time to see the end of the argument, when Lucifer and Michael sank to their knees in the middle of his living room and hugged it out, each blaming himself for the other’s inability to woo his respective Winchester. Adam figured it had more to do with ending the world than anything either of them might have said, but he wasn’t about to butt in and point that out.

That was when he decided to take a vacation, starting immediately, and clean up this mess. The Winchesters had not been easy to track down, and even harder to convince over the phone, but Adam knew enough details to show them that he was telling the truth, and now they were on their way here. They had refused to tell him what they planned to do once they arrived.

Adam hears the rumble of a big engine in his driveway, and Michael and Lucifer both go stock still, lifting their heads to look at each other, then to look at Adam.

“You brought them here?” Michael asks, with something like reverence in his voice.

“You stay here,” Adam warns them, and they both deflate. “I’m going to talk to them first, then you can see your vessels.”

The doorbell rings, and Adam turns away, feeling their eyes follow him until he’s out of their line of sight. 

He opens the door and is immediately greeted by water being splashed in his face.

The taller brother grabs him by the collar and throws him bodily out of the doorway and down onto the sidewalk. The wind goes out of him when he lands and he holds his hands up defensively, wheezing in a breath as the other brother shoves the long barrel of a pistol in his face.

“Tell me now if you’re a demon or I will shoot you to find out.” Adam recognizes the gravelly voice from their phone calls, and if the one holding the gun is Dean, then that makes the big guy with the shaggy hair and puppy dog eyes Sam. A third man in a suit and trenchcoat appears at Dean’s other shoulder. Adam can’t say how he knows, but something in the man’s eyes tells him that he’s another angel.

“Nice to meet you too,” Adam grunts. When he moves to sit up, Dean pokes him in the forehead with the gun barrel. “Jesus, man. I’m not a demon. Help me up.”

Sam steps past his brother and stretches out a hand, helping Adam to his feet and brushing off grit from his shoulder. “Sorry about that. We just gotta be sure.”

“Right,” Adam answers. “Demons would want to get this end of the world thing back on track, I guess. Who are you?” He asks, nodding towards the angel.

“Castiel,” comes the answer, then he looks away towards the house, as if he can see through the walls to examine his brothers inside. Adam supposes he can.

“How do you know all this?” Dean asks, still brandishing the pistol. Sam reaches out and gently pushes Dean’s arm down and away while Adam explains.

“Michael showed me, the first night they were here. He touched my forehead and I got the whole story, all at once, like I’d always known it.”

Castiel looks him over and nods. “He’s telling the truth. It’s an unconventional method, but not impossible.”

The corners of Dean’s mouth pull down and he nods, accepting the explanation. “Okay, so, where are they?” He asks, turning towards the house and raising the gun again.

“Are you gonna shoot them?” Adam hisses, grabbing Dean by the arm and stopping him. “You can’t shoot them, they’re angels!”

“This gun kills everything,” Dean says, “and if it doesn’t, then that will.”

He nods back over Adam’s shoulder, and he turns to see Castiel holding a long, shining sword unlike anything he’s ever seen before.

“No,” Adam tries again, shaking his head. “I mean, you can’t just walk in there and kill them.”

“Oh, right, because they’re _lovesick_ ,” Dean replies, spitting out the last word.

Sam steps in and shoots Dean a look before turning to Adam. “Look, Adam, you did good calling us, but angels don’t feel love like that. They don’t want _us_. They just want our bodies to use as vessels so they can end the world.”

“Are you sure about that?” Adam asks, pointing towards the door. “Because the only thing Lucifer’s been talking about all week is how he wants you to be happy, how you’re made for each other and that everything would be better for both of you if you were together.”

Sam looks contrite and goes silent, brows knitted together in thought. Adam shifts his focus to Dean.

“And you, Dean. The way Michael talks about you. Sense of duty, responsibility, willing to sacrifice yourself for your brother. He thinks you hung the moon. Okay, technically that’s impossible since he knows who hung the moon, but you get my point.”

Dean’s eyes narrow. He’s clearly more skeptical than Sam, but Adam thinks he may have made the tiniest impression, and that’s a start.

"They're in pain, lots of pain, because of you two. If I didn't know about angels and vessels and all that crap, I'd say that they are two men who are deeply in love and bitterly unhappy about it."

Sam's face softens, but Dean still looks unconvinced.

“Have you ever, really, talked to these angels?” Adam supplies.

Sam and Dean exchange a glance, then both look down at the ground, shaking their heads.

“That’s all I’ve been doing all week here, guys, and I gotta say. I know love when I see it, and they love you. They are broken and pining because they think you don’t want anything to do with them.”

At some point in the conversation Adam raised his voice, and he realizes now that he’s admonishing them for something that, on the surface, seems perfectly reasonable. But after a week with Michael and Lucifer, he’s figured out that you have to look past the surface if you want to get to the heart of the problem. He's spent the better part of a week getting to know Michael and Lucifer, and he hasn't seen the destructive, ruthless warriors of God his brothers think they know; he's just seen two sad, lost angels who needed a friend. He became that friend for them, and he'll be damned if he's going to let these two walk in there and ruin everything without giving them a chance.

He clears his throat, lowers his voice, and walks up to his door. “I’m not saying don’t shoot them. I’m saying talk to them first. You might be missing out on the chance of a lifetime here.”

Sam is the first to agree, nodding and following Adam inside. Dean stays outside a moment longer, until Castiel lays a reassuring hand on his shoulder. The two share a look, and finally Dean nods, hurrying to catch up with his brothers. Castiel comes in last, and hangs back near the door, out of the way.

There is the scrape of chairs and the clink of glasses, and when the three brothers round the corner into the kitchen they find Michael and Lucifer standing by the table, both of them looking nervous and uncomfortable.

“Dammit,” Dean growls from between clenched teeth. He turns to leave, but Sam plants a hand in the center of his chest and stops him.

“He’s wearing Dad, Sammy! _Come on._ ”

“Dude, all you gotta do is talk to him. You can do this.” Sam looks down into his brother’s eyes, and there is a short argument held entirely in the arching of eyebrows and the twitching of jaw muscles. Dean rolls his eyes and sighs deeply, turning back towards the kitchen.

Adam steps off to one side and motions for Sam and Dean to go in. They trail past him and there is an awkward dance at the table as everyone tries to decide where to sit. In the end brothers sit next to brothers, looking across the table at their opposite numbers. Michael and Lucifer look happier already, with eyes for no one but their vessels. Adam thinks it’s the first time he’s seen either of them smile.

Adam plucks two more whiskey glasses from the cupboard and slides them across the tabletop to Sam and Dean. He sets out an extra bottle and gives the angels a little smile.

“Give me a shout if you need anything,” he says. “I’m going to let you guys have some time alone.”

Michael grabs his wrist as he turns to go. “Thank you, Adam,” he whispers.

“Tell them what you told me,” he says.

Michael nods, and Adam walks back into his living room, sinking down into one of his armchairs to wait and see if he’s just restarted the Apocalypse, or just saved two angels from dying of loneliness. 

He’s pretty sure he already knows which.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Unforgettable](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1048309) by [Omano](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Omano/pseuds/Omano)




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